


What you and I have

by atir8891



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Just a lot of emotions, M/M, Married Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich, Nightmares, POV Mickey Milkovich, Post Season 10, Post-Canon, gets pretty sappy let me tell ya, looots of fluff toward the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26239495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atir8891/pseuds/atir8891
Summary: Mickey is forced to relive a difficult part of his life, in the form of a very vivid nightmare. Thankfully, his husband is right there next to him, ready to comfort him and help put the past behind them.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 14
Kudos: 181





	What you and I have

**Author's Note:**

> this is me trying my hand at a little hurt/comfort and also dealing with some of Mickey's trauma. no references to the events of 3x06 here, only the consequences in terms of Mickey's marriage to Svetlana and Ian having left for the army

_He wakes up alone in his bed._

_He’s dizzy and disoriented as he slowly starts sitting up, wary of his surroundings. He’s not really sure why, though. This is his childhood bedroom after all, even though the bed is not the same he slept in as a child. What other place could be more familiar to him? Where else he expected to wake up, he has no idea. But something feels painfully wrong._

_With the same feeling of unease in his belly, he gets out of bed and makes his way outside of the room. Someone’s making noise in the kitchen, but he’s not sure who he should expect to see once he enters. Again he thinks there's something very wrong with this picture. The place is familiar, it’s exactly how he remembers it, but something doesn’t quite add up. Maybe because it all feels strangely like a memory, like something out of time._

_“About time you got up, sleepyhead!”_

_He recognizes the voice, and yet for a moment he can’t place it. Until something in the back of his mind suggests it’s a voice he hasn’t heard in the longest time._

_His mother’s voice._

_He gets flooded with a sudden surge of feelings and memories, though they seem distant, almost as if they happened in another life. To someone else. But as he rounds the corner into the kitchen, it’s not the sight of his mother that greets him._

_It’s his wife._

_Svetlana._

_She’s at the stove, making breakfast. She turns towards him and her smile is blinding, like she’s happy to see him. Neither her voice a minute ago, nor her expression now seem like they belong to her. It all gets distorted in front of him, leaving him helplessly confused. This picture is completely wrong._

_The sense of unease inside of him grows and grows, turning into a distinct feeling of nauseousness. He thinks he can smell the breakfast that she’s making, but it’s not a familiar, soothing breakfast smell. It’s downright foul, and it’s choking him._

_She looks and smiles at him again._ Lovingly _._

_He feels like he could puke on the spot._

_This is wrong, this is all wrong. He feels trapped. Trapped in this kitchen, trapped in his own body, in his own skin. He wants to run._

_He wants the woman in front of him to turn back into his mother, just like who he thought she was before he rounded the corner. He wants his mom. He needs her comfort, and he desperately wants to go back to a time when she was his whole world, when_ she _was the one who made him breakfast and looked at him lovingly._

_His wife shouldn’t look at him lovingly. He doesn’t fucking want her to. He doesn’t want a fucking_ wife _._

_This isn't right._

_As the nausea is mixing with bile in his gut, she turns around again, only this time she’s not smiling anymore. Instead she’s frowning a bit, and her features have completely changed. She’s not Svetlana, and she’s not his mother. Her face has morphed into someone else entirely._

_She looks like… Debbie Gallagher?_

_What the fuck is Debbie Gallagher doing in his kitchen?_

_Except it’s not his kitchen anymore. He recognizes the place he's standing in now as the Gallagher kitchen._

_He feels the nausea receding slightly. This also feels like a familiar place, but it’s somehow more comforting, warmer._

_Yet something still feels wrong. Is he married to Debbie Gallagher? That still doesn’t seem right. The bile threatens to rise up again. He doesn’t fucking want a wife._

_He wants…_

_“Where’s Ian?”_

_His own voice startles him. He feels like he might not have used it in a long time, like it was taken away from him at some point. His brain feels full of other people’s voices -- mostly the yelling of an angry, older man -- but he can’t hear his own. It's like he hasn’t said anything in a long time. Like he hasn’t had a say in anything in a long time._

_“Why are you asking about Ian, silly?”_

_She laughs at him. She must not know. Or maybe_ he _’s the one who doesn’t know. Has no idea what’s going on. Maybe it really is just a silly question, because deep down, he does know where Ian is._

_“Ian’s gone off to join the army, I told you about that.” She doesn’t seem at all concerned. He, on the other hand, suddenly feels_ very _concerned. For Ian’s safety, mainly, but also because this is all so wrong. He should be here. Ian should be here with him._

_He feels nauseous again, only considerably more violently than before. He has a fucking wife, and he doesn’t have Ian. Everything’s so wrong, but in a weird, fucked up way, that makes it feel familiar._

_Everything’s always been wrong. He’s fucked for life, he’s always known that._

_But that doesn’t stop a sharp pain from burrowing deep in his gut._

_It feels like something’s killing him from the inside. He bends over from the pain, holding his stomach with both hands, his face scrunching in pure agony. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He crumbles on the kitchen floor. He looks up, about to try to scream for help, when he sees two figures standing above him. On one side his mother, concern and fear etched in her soft features, and on the other his dad, expression a mix of anger and amusement over his current pained state. He realizes no one is going to help him._

_This life of his is killing him and no one is going to help him. No one is even willing to try. No one cares enough to._

_One thought remains clear in his head through the excruciating pain._

_He wants Ian. He needs Ian._

_He should be married to…_

*

Mickey wakes up with a start, breathing harshly and feeling cold sweat running down his hairline. His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest and the sense of panic left behind by the nightmare keeps him from being able to get his heart rate down and his breathing back to normal. His eyes are gradually getting used to the relative darkness of the room, but he can't really focus on anything, too shaken by the images of the nightmare still.

As his mind is starting to clear a little bit and allows him to return to the present, he senses Ian beginning to stir beside him.

Ian makes a sleepy sound and slowly opens his eyes, suddenly widening them when he doesn’t see Mickey directly beside him where he should be. He only relaxes once he spots him sitting up in the bed, hunched forward, and moves to sit up himself.

He's rubbing his eyes with his palms when he notices Mickey’s sweating and panting harshly. “Hey,” he whispers, then clears his throat, voice hoarse for lack of use. “You okay?”

He inches closer and reaches his hand to stroke Mickey’s back soothingly. This has an immediate effect on Mickey, who takes a deeper breath and is finally able to turn his head towards Ian, after staring at the same spot in front of him for what felt like an eternity.

“Yeah, I’ll-I’ll be fine. Was just a nightmare.” Ian leans in to touch their foreheads together and Mickey accepts the gesture gladly, sighing and closing his eyes.

“You wanna talk about it?” Ian asks, still stroking Mickey’s back, as his breathing slowly returns to normal.

Mickey opens his mouth and exhales, frankly unsure if he does want to talk about it or not. He's still feeling shaken and a little vulnerable, and he hates feeling vulnerable. But at this point he’s pretty sure he won’t be able to go back to sleep any time soon. He can’t stop picturing the whole thing in his head, like it’s on a loop, and his heart is still racing a bit. Maybe talking about it will actually help, or at least it will tire him out enough to relax his agitated mind.

“Uh… wasn’t as violent as the nightmares I have sometimes.” Mickey knows he doesn’t need to clarify it more than that to Ian. He’s woken him up plenty of times, kicking his legs and thrashing around the bed, later explaining to him exactly who it was that he was fighting in the dream. The same old monster who usually haunts his nightmares.

As expected, Ian nods, a little sadly, so he continues, dropping his gaze.

“I just felt… trapped. Sick to my stomach. Was living a life that wasn’t my own.” Mickey looks at Ian, who's listening attentively but now has a small frown on his forehead. “Svetlana was there.” Mickey sees realization hit Ian’s features, and then a look of sadness passes over his face as he glances back at his husband.

“My mother was there,” Mickey goes on with a small smile. The smile turns into a scowl as he adds, “And my dad.” Then he chuckles lightly. “Fucking _Debbie_ was there, for some reason.”

Ian looks at him surprised and a little amused himself. Mickey just shrugs. “Like, it was Svetlana at first and then she just fucking turned into Debbie, y’know? So I guess maybe Debbie was my wife at one point. I don’t fucking know, man, dreams are weird.” He shakes his head in disbelief, all amusement gone as he remembers the feelings he’d experienced during the dream. Dread, nausea, helplessness. He wonders whether he dreamt about being married to Debbie because of all the stuff that was going on on his and Ian’s wedding day. The subconscious is funny like that, sometimes.

His expression turns even more somber as he says, softly, “ _You_ weren’t there, though.” Ian frowns a bit and inches even closer to him, moving the hand that had been stroking Mickey’s back up to his head, to card through Mickey’s hair in a comforting motion.

Mickey closes his eyes then and leans his forehead to rest on Ian’s shoulder. Ian presses a kiss to the top of his head and waits for him to go on. Mickey takes a deep inhale and mumbles, “You were in the army, Debbie said.”

Mickey lifts up his head slightly to look at Ian’s reaction, and sees his eyes widen with understanding. It’s getting harder and harder to talk about this, because this is a sensitive subject for the both of them. They’ve talked about some of this stuff, occasionally, but it never gets any easier.

Still, he presses on. “Guess it was like being transported back then, you know -- to those months after you were gone and I was living under the same roof with a wife I didn’t fucking want and my shithead dad watching my every move.” He grimaces when he mentions Svetlana and his dad, still reeling from that mix of unpleasant feelings he had experienced during the nightmare. But, glancing at Ian, he knows that his husband is stuck on a different part of what he's just said.

This is confirmed when Ian speaks for the first time in several minutes. “I’m sorry.” He pauses, looking down at his lap. “For not being there, I mean. Back then I felt like leaving was the only right move for me. But I know I left you in the shit. I left you there to fend for yourself against the fucking wolves, Mick, and I’m so sorry.”

Ian’s voice breaks at the end, and Mickey knows how little it takes for his self-loathing thoughts to spiral. That’s not what Mickey wants. There’s no need for Ian to beat himself up about this, so he’s quick to reassure him. “Hey, I don’t blame you for that shit, man. You did what you had to do. ‘s not your fault.” He plants a kiss to Ian’s shoulder and strokes his thumb on Ian’s bicep in a circular motion, soothing him.

Ian takes a deep breath, to try to calm himself down and quieten his racing thoughts. He turns toward Mickey, catching his eyes with a sad expression in his own. “Still sorry you had to go through all that. And that you had to do it alone.”

Mickey sighs and looks away, resting his head on Ian’s shoulder again. “Yeah, it wasn’t fucking fun, that’s for sure." He pauses, looks at Ian again. "But I mean it, don't you go feeling guilty about that shit. The only one to blame for the whole shitshow back then is my prick of a dad, no one else.”

He chews on his lip for a few moments. Thinking, reminiscing. “You know, back then, I just blamed myself for everything. Thought maybe I had brought the whole thing on myself after all. I felt like such a piece of shit for so fucking long, Ian. Took me a while to realize it wasn’t my damn fault my dad's such a hateful waste of fucking space.”

He feels Ian’s finger on his chin, gently turning his head so they can look each other in the eye. Ian is gazing at him with such intensity that it steals his breath for a second. “You’re damn right it wasn’t your fault. None of it was. I’m so fucking angry that he put you through that, that he put you through hell all your life.” Ian’s eyes turn sad then, as he starts stroking Mickey’s cheek with his thumb. "I hate that you’re still having nightmares about that part of your life.”

His eyes are slightly wet with tears, and in that moment Mickey feels overwhelmed by Ian’s love for him. And, unexpectedly, he feels _lucky_. Grateful. After everything, he really gets to have this. He gets to spend the rest of his life sharing all his joys and all his sorrows with his favorite person in the world. He gets to be comforted by his husband whenever he might need it, and to do the same for him in return.

He’s smiling now, which causes Ian to regard him curiously. He tries to put what he’s feeling into words for him, for the both of them.

“You know, in the end that horrible fucking dream can't do nothing but make me realize even more how good I have it now, how different my life has gotten." A thought pops into his head. "Huh, maybe that’s what triggered it.” Ian looks lost, so he continues. “Finally being married to you, it feels like a fucking dream. A weird ass dream sometimes -- like I can't believe this is real life, it's so fucking good. So, I guess a part of me is probably scared shitless that I’ll wake up one day and still be living that other life, that goddamn nightmare of a life. But, thank Christ, this is what’s real right here.”

He takes Ian’s jaw in his hand, stroking his chin with his thumb, before moving to thread his fingers through the hair on the back of Ian’s head. All the while feeling drunk and overwhelmed with the amount of love he feels for this man.

Ian looks absolutely in awe, Mickey’s words seemingly having a powerful effect on him. “Fuck, Mickey.” His eyes are sparkling with emotion again, and his voice is trembling. “I love you,” Ian whispers sweetly, and Mickey gently brushes Ian’s lower lip with his thumb, like he wants to caress those words that just came out of his mouth, and that always manage to leave him a little breathless.

“I love you, too.” He leans in and presses a long, soft kiss to Ian’s lips, feeling Ian’s hand reach out to cup the back of his head. “I told you once before that what we have makes me free, and I meant it then just like I do now. All that other shit's in the past, and it can fucking _stay_ there, so long as I get to wake up every day next to you. Nothing else I need, to feel at peace.”

He knows he’s getting sappier by the minute, but fuck it, this is exactly how he feels and he’s not afraid to let Ian in anymore. Getting all emotional doesn’t scare him like it used to in the past. Truth be told, there’s a lot of things he’s no longer afraid of these days. Not now, when he has so many good things in his life, things that make him feel like maybe he can finally breathe.

“Fuck, Mickey,” Ian says again. He looks overwhelmed with emotion, too, as he clings to Mickey even tighter now. “You know I feel the same, right? Everything else might turn to shit, but you’re always my safe place. You make me feel like I'm not alone, like together we can take on fucking anything. I’m so damn lucky to be able to call you my husband.”

Mickey kisses him again, because he doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s too much right now, but it’s just perfect. He feels like no more words are needed at the moment. So he just lets his lips and his tongue move with Ian’s instead, like he’s done so many times before. Like he’ll never get tired of doing.

When they part, Mickey suddenly feels an overwhelming kind of tiredness deep in his bones. All this talking end emotion has exhausted him, he realizes. Might also be that it’s still the middle of the night, and they both need to get back to sleep if they want to function in the morning.

He taps the side of Ian’s face gently, while still looking at his lips with half-lidded eyes. “Okay, tough guy, that's enough talking about our feelings for tonight. You need your beauty sleep, and so do I. And I also need to be cuddled by your giant ass, so fucking get to it.” With this, he moves to lay back down on the bed, turning on his side and pulling on Ian’s wrist to get him to lay down with him and spoon him.

Ian snickers lowly and does what he’s told, inching closer to him and causing warm breath to tickle the back of Mickey’s neck as he lays down next to his husband. “Don’t need to ask me twice,” is the last thing he says before planting an open-mouthed kiss to the nape of Mickey’s neck and settling in to sleep, pressing himself as close as humanly possible to Mickey’s back and tangling their legs.

Mickey grins to himself then, truly and perfectly content. He’s got the love of his life, his _husband_ , wrapped around him like a koala bear and he couldn’t feel more safe or loved. His nightmares might still try to fuck with him from time to time, but he can fall asleep peacefully now, ‘cause life's pretty fucking great for him at the moment. He’s not a scared kid anymore. He’s a man who went through hell and came out the other side, bruised and battered but not broken, and stronger for it. And he’s got a brave, beautiful man by his side that he can say much the same about.

He doesn’t know how he got so lucky, but he doesn’t feel like he’s fucked for life anymore. He has hopes for the future. Plans. Aspirations.

Mickey is happy, simple as that. He’s safe, he’s loved, and he’s free.

And fuck if it isn't the best damn feeling in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know your thoughts!!!!
> 
> also you can find me on [tumblr](https://sickness-health-all-that-shit.tumblr.com/)


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